


Ally or Betray?

by MyLow



Series: Ally or Betray [1]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Abduction, Angst, Awkward Flirting, Fluff, M/M, Slow Burn, Trust Issues, Zero escape - Freeform, nonary game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:22:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28655655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyLow/pseuds/MyLow
Summary: Corpse is abducted and wakes up in some kind of elevator next to a stranger. The doors won’t open and the buttons don’t work and just as he’s about to try blunt force, the stranger wakes up.—————This fic is inspired by the video game series „Zero Escape“. I have plans for it to become an interactive fic, where you can „choose your own path“ so to say. Let’s see if I’ll get around to writing it :‘D There will be no smut in here, just fluff and angst.
Relationships: Corpse Husband/Sykkuno (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: Ally or Betray [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2105937
Comments: 13
Kudos: 91





	1. Kidnapped

His head hurt as if he was knocked out with a brick.

That was Corpses‘ first thought upon waking up. His second thought was: _WHERE THE HELL AM I??_

He slowly managed to lift his head off the ground and looked around.

His eyes hurt from the bright LED lights on the ceiling and his limbs felt heavier than usual. The room looked like some kind of elevator with handrails on the sides and a door that looked like it could slide open, so of course the first thing he did was pushing the buttons next to the door.

Nothing. Of course.

He turned around and almost screamed out loud. There was a body lying on the ground that he didn’t see before!  
But before he could check on them, his reflection in the mirror above their body caught his eye and he almost had another heart attack.

He looked like...a robot?! He was wearing a suit that looked like it was made out of some kind of metal, with a red toga slung above it. Quickly he checked under the fabric, but it looked like his entire body _and_ his face were covered by the metal suit and he couldn’t see an opening or a lock of any kind.

Panic began seeping through him and his breathing became heavier and heavier. He had no way out of this suit OR out of this room and even if he did, he didn’t know where he was or what the fuck happened to him.

He met his eyes in the mirror and suddenly flashed back to the last moments he remembered...

_It was an average thursday night for him, he was just finishing up his stream for the day, when his doorbell rang. He quickly said goodbye and disconnected from the discord call, eagerly awaiting the food he had ordered. It came a bit earlier than he had expected, but that was fine with him, since he suddenly felt like he was starving._

_He opened the door, paid and tipped the delivery driver and finally had his hands on the long awaited mexican food. When he turned away from the door and made his way over to the living room, he noticed that his window was open._ Wait, did I leave that open? _he wondered._

 _Then everything happened at once, he made to close the window, saw a reflection in the glass that looked like someone with a gas mask standing behind him and then white smoke filled the room. He remembered falling backwards, hitting his head on the coffee table and, ridiculously, his last thought being_ Nooo my mexican food! _as he dropped it on the floor._

...then nothing. That was all he got, though it did explain his splitting headache. He really got fucking kidnapped, what the fuck?! What did they want from him? And what was the suit for?

He just wanted out of here, and he was about to try blunt force on the elevator door when he heard a noise from the other person. Reprimanding himself on how he could forget that there was someone else in here with him, he knelt down next to the body, when suddenly their eyes flew open.

They stared at each other for a long moment, then suddenly the boy let out an ear-piercing scream. Corpse flailed his arms and fell back on his ass in surprise, then hurried to cover his ears before realizing that he couldn't, because of the fucking helmet on his head. _Oh, that's probably why he's screaming_ , Corpse thought absentmindedly. _I look like a fucking robot._

Corpse cleared his throat and tried to make himself heard over the screaming: "Can you tone it down a bit, my head is fucking killing me."

That shut the boy up for a second, but just as Corpse wanted to sigh in relief he started up again, this time impossibly even higher pitched than before.

Corpse surrendered to his fate then and decided to just wait it out, the guy couldn't scream forever after all. Besides, maybe someone would be able to hear them from the outside **because** of the screaming. Actually, there might be quite a reasonable chance for that, now that he thought about it. So, after about a minute of screaming he thought _Fuck it_ and joined in. His "Ahhhhhh" was a lot lower pitched in comparison to the other guy and it made him laugh a bit.

Fortunately for Corpses' headache, the boy became so confused by his actions that he finally closed his mouth for good and stopped yelling.

He could practically feel his vocal chords protest all the strain he put on them so shortly after waking up, but he cleared his throat again and said: "I know this is not the most comforting thing to hear right now, but...Hi, I'm Corpse, who the fuck are you?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave comments and kudos if you want me to continue, you have no idea how motivating these are. I need them to continue writing, otherwise I just procrastinate until no one cares anymore :'D


	2. Sykkuno & Zero Junior

"U-uhm, y-your name i-is _Corpse_??"

Those were the first words out of the other guys' mouth, because of course they were. It wasn't an everyday name after all.

"Yeah, I mean, kinda like an alias or nickname, you know?" he explained.

"O-oh that makes more sense I guess. In that case you can call me Sykkuno," the other guy said. Corpse was really glad to not have to call him "other guy" in his head anymore.

"Okay, so Sykkuno, I know you just woke up, but do you have _any idea_ about what happened? Like, why we are here, in this strange elevator for example?" Corpse asked.

"Elevator? Uhm, yeah I guess it does look like one." Sykkuno looked around the room a bit more, shaking his head. "No, not a clue. All I remember is walking home from Campus when someone grabbed me, pulled me into a van and then there was this white smoke everywhere. It all happened so quickly, but I did see the person when they closed the back doors of the van, it looked like they had some kind of gas mask on though."

 _So he got abducted basically the same way,_ Corpse thought. _At least that means he's probably telling the truth._

"Yeah it was the same for me actually, only that it happened in my own apartment, not out on the street. I have no clue why they would kidnap me of all people though, it can't be a random thing since they knew where I lived and had to have spent time finding a way in, I suppose." Corpse mused, lost in thought.

Sykkuno spoke up quietly: "Uhm, Corpse, one question...you're not a robot, are you?"

Oh. Yeah he kinda forgot how he must've looked to another person right now. Corpse chuckled darkly. "Not as far as I know, no."

"So, uhh, could the reason why you were abducted have something to do with, uhm, what you're...wearing?" Sykkuno asked.

"...I didn't have that on when I was abducted, Sykkuno. They put me in it and I have no clue why or how to get it off. I didn't find a lock or an opening or anything to get out of it."

Suddenly, they heard a noise from over by the elevator door that sounded like a computer powering up. Above the buttons, that Corpse had tried out earlier, there was a monitor flickering to life. They made their way over there, Corpse helping Sykkuno up from the floor, since he was still a bit shaky on his legs.

There was a cartoon rabbit on the screen and it began talking to them: "Cooooorpse! Sykkunooooo! You're finally awake! ~~Took you long enough~~... How are you feeling? I am Zero Junior. The King of this Kingdom!!!"

"W-what the hell is that?? A rat?" Sykkuno stuttered.

"Uhm, no. Pretty sure it's a rabbit," Corpse answered.

The rabbit continued unbothered: "I'm sure you've got looooooots of questions! It just seems silly to have a big old chit-chat right now. Soooo I'm gonna give youuu a game to play! And I'm calling it: THE NONARY GAAAAAME! AMBIDEX EDITIOOOOON!"

The guys looked at each other cluelessly, a sinking feeling in their stomachs.

"There's more to it! Lots more! But!!! If I told you now, that'd be cheating. So! Hurry up and get out. I'll be waitiiiiing."

Corpse interjected: "Hey, wait! Hold on! Who the hell-"

"Oh, right! I forgot to tell you the most. Important. Thing. This elevator you're in? It's gonna fall in a few minutes. Waaaaaaaay down. So you'd better get moving. I'll see you later. Have a nice trick!" and with that the screen went black again.

"What the fuck was that??" Corpse asked to no one in particular.

Sykkuno answered anyway: "I think it was a pre-recorded animation, probably. That didn't sound good at all. This elevator will fall? What did it mean we have to find a way out?"

"I don't know, I've already tried pressing the buttons while you were still out cold, they didn't do anything. I was just about to try forcing it open when you woke up, so I guess I'll try that now." Corpse positioned himself on one side of the door, tried to get a grip on the middle part where there was a slit and pulled with everything he got. No dice. It didn't budge even a little bit.

Meanwhile Sykkuno looked around the room more. "Okay so we've got handrails, a weird poster with a bunch of people on it, a fire extinguisher case that is locked, a strange machine that isn't on and doesn't react when I touch it and...hey! There's a hatch in the ceiling! Maybe we can get out through there?"

He was right, there _was_ a hatch there. It had a round handle on it and looked like it would open outwards if the handle was turned. They probably _could_ escape through there.

"Alright Sykkuno, I'll lift you up and you try turning that handle!"

"M-me? Why can't _I_ lift you up and you turn it?"

Corpse looked at him skeptically. "You really think you could lift me up, even though I'm taller than you _and_ have a whole ass metal suit on?"

Sykkuno blushed, but was not willing to admit defeat yet. "Hey! I'm stronger than I look!" he pouted.

Corpse just stared him down and waited.

"Okay, fine, maybe I can't lift you up," Sykkuno conceded.

Corpse let out a tiny laugh and then just grabbed Sykkuno by the waist and lifted him like it was nothing. _Woah, not sure I could've done that normally. That was a bit too easy for my fucked up body to be honest._

Sykkuno, unaware of Corpse's inner monologue, tried his best to turn the handle but it seemed to be stuck in place.

"I guess that would've been too easy, huh?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How do you think they'll get out of this one?
> 
> Zero Junior's dialogue is from the game "Virtue's Last Reward". I will occasionally use stuff from the video game series, since it's an AU for that series. The characters are different people though so I'll try to make it original, in case anyone here has played these games.


	3. Seek A Way Out!

As Corpse slowly let Sykkuno down again, the other man kept staring at his wrist. While he was trying to open the hatch in the ceiling, his sleeves had fallen down a bit and there looked to be some kind of watch on his wrist.

"Is something wrong?" Corpse asked.

"This bracelet...it's not mine. Someone must've put this on me!" Sykkuno answered.

"Wait, my suit has one as well! It's kind of embedded in the metal of the arm, so I thought it just belonged to the suit, but it looks exactly like yours. Mine has a "3" on it and below it it says "PAIR". What do you think that means?"

"No idea, but mine says the same. Do you think it's 3 o'clock right now then?" Sykkuno asked.

"Well there's no way to tell, we don't have any windows in here and I've no clue how long I've been out cold." Corpse answered. "In any case, we should start looking for another way out of here. I really don't wanna be in here when this elevator falls who knows how far to the ground."

"You're right, let's see if we can find any clues!" Sykkuno said, as he started searching the room more in depth.

First, they looked at the strange poster with little drawn comic figures on it, as it seemed the most out of place in an elevator. There were 4 babies, 3 children, 2 adults and 7 elderly people on it. Below there was a sentence saying "Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of 80 and gradually approach 18." _Huh, weird._

Next, they looked at the fire extinguisher case standing in one corner of the elevator. It was locked and had directions on how to use a fire extinguisher above it. On closer inspection though, the instructions seemed...weird. It looked like you could get the key for the case _from_ the fire extinguisher. Corpse looked around and found a fire extinguisher in the opposite corner from the case, knelt down and pulled at the pin on the top of it. It came off, just like the instructions had said! 

Sykkuno actually sounded excited when he saw this and squealed: "This is kinda like an escape room! You know, with us searching everywhere for clues and stuff..."

He trailed off at the look Corpse threw his way. "Yeah, except for the fact that we were _kidnapped_ , remember?"

"O-oh, yeah, I guess...can I open the case?" Sykkuno did his best attempt at puppy dog eyes.

Corpse sighed. "I can't believe they put me in here with someone like this. Fine, there you go." He handed over the key.

Sykkuno opened up the case and inside they found 4 metal pieces that looked like sockets for socket wrenches, each one a different shape.

"Guess we'll have to find the wrench handles too for these to be of any use, huh?" Sykkuno pointed out.

"Yeah, probably. But Sykkuno, look over here. I think I found what that poster was meant for. There's a little picture of an elderly person above these buttons with the numbers 1 through 9. How many elderly people were on there again?" Corpse asked.

"7 I think. So we press button number 7!"

Sykkuno sounded excited again and Corpse could only roll his eyes. He pressed the number 7 button and then turned around to the opposite side of the elevator. "And then we need the number of babies for this side, there's a little baby icon here. I think it was 4..." He trailed off as he pressed the number 4 button.

Aaaand...nothing happened. Okay, guess that would've been too easy. He looked around to see what Sykkuno was doing, since he heard the guy muttering under his breath. "Red,... Yellow,... Blue,... Green."

"What is it Sykkuno?"

"Oh, uhm, these handles on the rails all have different colours, red, yellow, blue and green. I don't know what that means though," he scratched his head.

"Hmm have you tried grabbing them, see if you can turn them or something?" Corpse asked.

"Oh good idea! Let me try...hey! They're loose! We can just take them off," exclaimed Sykkuno excitedly.

"Really? Let me see..." Corpse grabbed another one of the handles and just like Sykkuno said, if he wriggled it a bit it came right off. "Wait, do you think these are supposed to be the wrench handles? Since there's exactly 4 of them?"

"Maybe, yeah! Let's try putting them together," Sykkuno suggested. And it worked! Now they had 4 wrenches for 4 different shapes, but nothing to use them on yet...maybe the hatch on the ceiling? Or the strange machine in the room, that hasn't done anything so far? Corpse decided to take a look at it, but didn't find any screws on it that he could loosen. He did find a safe underneath the machine though, but it required a passcode that he obviously didn't know yet.

Meanwhile, Sykkuno was standing in front of the elevator buttons that Corpse had pushed earlier, before the other man had woken up. "These have a rabbit symbol above it, but there weren't any rabbits on the poster, right?" Sykkuno wondered out loud. "Maybe the one that talked to us on the screen counts..." He hit the number 1 button, but again, nothing happened. 

Suddenly Corpse had a thought: "No, Sykkuno, I don't think he counts. Remember what he said his name was? Zero Junior. Like the number Zero! Push the 0 button!"

"Aha!" Sykkuno looked at him, a wide grin on his face that he tried to hide behind his hands, "Now you're getting excited about it too! It's not just me!"

It was kind of adorable to Corpse. "Just push the damn button Sykkuno," he said rolling his eyes, but the smile could be heard in his voice, even if it couldn't be seen behind the helmet.

Click! Right below the rabbit icon a little blue memory card popped out of a slit and fell to the ground. Sykkuno picked it up hastily. While on the ground he saw a grate with 4 different coloured screws on them and called Corpse over immediately.

"This is what the wrenches _have_ to be for!" They made quick work out of the 4 corners of the grate and pulled it off. Inside they found another memory card, this one green.

"What are we supposed to do with all these memory cards?" Sykkuno wondered.

"They're probably for that weird machine thingy, it's the only thing in here we didn't manage to use yet. Let's see if there are slots on it where we can insert these," Corpse reasoned.

They found the slots pretty quickly and inserted the green memory card first. Immediately the machine turned on with a soft hum, the screen remained blank though. The blue memory card was next, this time the screen changed and showed "PASSCODE: YOUFOUNDIT".

"We can probably open the safe with this, at least it said that it needed a Passcode earlier when I looked at it," Corpse informed Sykkuno.

"Awesome! Do you think there's cash or a treasure or something in there??" Sykkuno asked.

Corpse looked at him in disbelief. "Sykkuno... _I hope there's something to help us get out of this room in there!_ "

"Oh Jesus, yes you're right, that would be cool too. ~~(I still want a treasure though)~~."

Corpse pretended he hadn't heard the last, mumbled part and knelt down to open the safe. He could practically feel Sykkuno breathe on his neck while looking over his shoulder and that was a feat in itself, considering his skin was currently covered in metal. He put the password in and the safe door opened to reveal a small key alongside a note in there. He grabbed both items, stood up and turned around to see Sykkuno looking dejectedly into the empty safe.

Corpse cleared his throat and Sykkuno jumped a little. At least he had his attention again. He opened the folded paper and began to read out loud:

_Congratulations!_   
_You found the way out! This key is for the glass panel in front of the emergency button. Open it up and press the button to get out. However!! That is not the reason why I'm writing you this note. You should know that as soon as you get out of this room the real Nonary Game will start. And every game needs to have opponents. Or are they teammates? In any case, you will meet the other players soon and that is why I wanted to explain something to you, Corpse._

Corpse stopped reading abruptly, his head snapping up to meet Sykkunos eyes. It didn't take long for Sykkuno to realise why.

"O-oh, this next part is probably meant for just you, right? And you don't want me to know what it says...I get it, that's fine, you don't have to read it out loud if you don't want to."

"I-...I don't know what it says yet and, I just, I don't know you at all really, you understand that right? I'm sorry, but I just can't take the risk-..." he trailed off.

"No, like I said, it's fine, I get it." Sykkuno had averted his eyes to the ground and refused to meet Corpse's gaze. "We don't know each other, really, I don't even know what you look like or your real name, so it's completely understandable if you don't trust me with that kinda information yet."

Corpse felt guilty at seeing Sykkuno look like a kicked puppy, but he had no choice. He read on silently.

_You're probably wondering by now why you are wearing that metal suit. None of the other players will be wearing something like this and I wanted to explain why I put you in it. I know that your identity is protected and there is no chance that the other players would've let you walk around with a mask on that they could've easily taken off. To spare you from this fate and also to help you a bit in this game, I have enhanced your suit, so that you're at least on an even playing field with the other players. Your conditions won't cause you pain while you are wearing it and I may have also given you a bit of enhanced strength and speed. You might now wonder why I have done this. Well to be frank with you...I want you to win this game. You will eventually find a key to open the suit and get out of it, don't worry. But for now, your secret's safe with me. Until then, have a nice trick. -Zero_

Corpse finished reading, crumpled up the note and shoved it deep into the pocket of his toga. He couldn't tell Sykkuno about this, at least not until he knew more about what this "game" was supposed to be. He stayed silent while he pulled out the key, inserted it in the keyhole of the glass panel above the red emergency button and opened it up. He adressed Sykkuno who had his eyes still cast down, looking at his shoes.

"Do you wanna press this big red button? It seems like something you would wanna do..." Corpse trailed off.

Sykkuno finally looked up, nodded and shuffled over. Corpse wished for his misplaced excitement from earlier back. Sykkuno looked at him closely and then counted down: "3...2...1..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really proud I managed to write so much today :'D I made it part of a series, because that seems to be easier for the "choose your path" elements I have planned for this story. The first choice should probably be at the end of chapter 6, where you will be able to decide which storyline you wanna go down :) (oh god i put so much on my plate with this fic, kill me now)


	4. The Other Players

Sykkuno pressed the red emergency button and instead of the doors opening like Corpse had suspected, the hatch did.

"Of course they couldn't just open the door, now we gotta climb out," Sykkuno sighed, looking up at the gaping hole in the ceiling.

"Here, I'll give you a leg up," Corpse offered. He threaded his hands together and waited for Sykkuno to literally step on him.

The other man looked at him with a carefully guarded expression. "Okay, but how will you get out?"

"Oh, uhm, you can just gimme a hand once you're up there, I should be able to make this," Corpse thought of the extra strength that the note in his pocket had mentioned, but Sykkuno didn't need to know that.

Sykkuno still looked doubtful, but didn't argue with him any longer. He put a hand on Corpse's shoulder for stability and made it out of the room on the first try. He then reached one hand back down through the hole and helped Corpse up.

As soon as they were both standing on their own two feet again they looked around at their surroundings. They seemed to be in a massive warehouse, standing on top of one out of six rooms that looked exactly like the one they just came out of.

"H-hey! That wasn't an elevator at all! We weren't in danger of falling, that rabbit lied to us!" Sykkuno sounded very indignant about that.

Corpse quickly hushed him, noticing the other people already in the warehouse and nodding in their direction. "We should probably go say hi to them," he murmured. He took Sykkuno's hand, ignoring the blush creeping on the others' face, to help him down from the supposed "elevator". He let go again when they were both on solid ground and they made their way over to the small group of people.

"Finally! What took you guys so long? You're the last ones to make it out!" a brunette woman asked.

Even though the greeting seemed a bit harsh, Corpse was glad for it, as everyone else seemed to just be staring at him, speechless. This wasn't his most pressing issue though...he recognized one of the other people there, it was Dave, an irl friend of his who only knew him by his given name. Obviously Dave hadn't recognized him yet with the suit and everything, so Corpse decided to keep quiet for now, as his voice was a dead giveaway. He nudged Sykkuno lightly so that the other one would lead the conversation, hoping he thought that Corpse was just nervous with so many eyes on him.

Sykkuno cleared his throat and started talking, introducing them by their nicknames and explaining how they were abducted. He finished with a questioning look towards Corpse, asking if he had forgotton anything. Corpse nodded at him and then looked towards the others, who kept just staring at him.

"Oh, yeah, the suit! It's not his guys, he was put into it for whatever reason and we couldn't find a way to get it open and him out of it. Anyway, what are your names? Maybe we should _all_ use nicknames, so we don't accidentally give our kidnapper information about us that he doesn't already have," Sykkuno suggested shyly.

"That's a good idea Sykkuno," said a man with dyed green hair. "You can all call me Jack, which is not my actual first name," he said, winking at them. "I woke up in my room alone with this weird bracelet on that we all seem to have. It says "3 SOLO" in blue on it."

"Mine's the same, only it's in red," another man spoke up. This one had an accent that Corpse couldn't place, although he spoke very fluently. "You can call me Pewdiepie, or Pewds for short."

"Okay, so we've got a red Pair, which is Corpse and me, a red Solo and a blue Solo, so I'm guessing there's a blue Pair as well?" Sykkuno summarised.

"Yeah, that would be us," said two women standing at Sykkuno's left. One of them was the one that had greeted them earlier. She told them she wanted her nickname to be Valkyrae, and that her team partner was called Poki. They woke up in the room together, just like Corpse and Sykkuno did.

Everyone turned to the three people left who hadn't spoken up yet. Corpse saw Dave stepping forward and speaking up: "Hey, uhm, I don't have a cool nickname like all of you, but I play in a band, so you could call me "Boyinaband" I guess, until I can think of something better. I woke up in my room with this guy and our bracelets say "3 PAIR" in green."

The guy next to him introduced himself as Roomie, which only left one girl. She cleared her throat and said: "I-I'm the green Solo. I also don't really have a nickname, but I have a pet bird whose name is Ari, so maybe you could call me that?"

"Awesome, that is settled then. Now that we all have names, do any of you have a clue as to what the hell is going on here?" Valkyrae asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We met the others! I decided on this group of people, because I feel like I know them the best. I'm subscribed to Felix, Jaiden and Roomie and have watched a lot of videos from Dave and Jack. Poki and Rae I only know from the Among Us Streams, but since they're in nearly every single one, I feel like I got a decent feeling for their personalities. Others like Ludwig or Karl would've been fun as well, but I don't think I know them well enough yet to write them. Hope you enjoyed! (600 Hits! 50 Kudos! Thank you so much ♥)


	5. The Rules Of The Game

Silence followed her question, no one seemed to have any answers.

Finally, Sykkuno spoke up: "I have another question, you guys were out earlier than us, did you have a chance to check this place out yet?" As he said it, he looked around the warehouse. It said "FLOOR A" in big bold letters on the ground. There seemed to be 4 doors, three of them were coloured and one had a big red number 9 painted on it.

It was the man with the green hair that answered Sykkuno: "Well we tried all the doors, obviously, but they're all shut tight. We also couldn't open the elevator room doors from the outside either. Other than that, the only thing that we found was this graffiti on the wall over there saying "TWO MILKMEN GO COMEDY", no idea what that is about though."

"I-is it saying that two cow farmers decided to pursue a comedy carreer?" Sykkuno asked wide-eyed and Corpse let out a tiny chuckle.

The shy girl, who had called herself Ari, chimed in then: "I-I think it might be an...anagram. You know, like You-Know-Who's name from Harry Potter? You switch around the letters and it says something else," she immediately looked down at the ground again as everyone's scrutiny turned towards her.

As she finished speaking they heard an inhuman voice pipe up. "He he he he...Eeee he he he he."

It was the creepiest bit of laughter Corpse had ever heard, but it did get everyone's attention. It looked like a projector was turned on and Zero Jr appeared on the wall above the graffiti.

"Shame on you, Ariel! You can't say what I'm about to say before I say it! I've got a plan, you know. I can't just tell you everything at once! Although, things _are_ starting to get exciting." And there was the evil laugh again.

Corpse already had enough of this guy, and it seemed others did too. The guy called Pewds shouted at him: "Where are you, you little bastard?! Too scared to come out and face me like a man?!"

"Are you an idiot? I'm-a-rabbit. You really think a talking rabbit is a real thing?"

"Of course I don't! That's not what I meant though."

"Ohhh you meant you want to see the person who's controlling me? Well who's to say that person isn't...among you already!" Zero Jr sounded way too pleased with himself.

They all suddenly looked at eachother with renewed mistrust in their eyes, until Ari spoke up: "G-guys, this is exactly what he wants! He wants to pit us against each other. For now, we need to trust eachother and trust that we are all in this together."

It was a nice notion, but Corpse wasn't that naive. He would keep his guard up until he was out of this nightmare.

Poki the adressed the rabbit on the screen: "Are you sure about that? You're not just a video, since you're responding to our questions and stuff, so someone must be controlling you right now and I don't see any of us having a keyboard or anything in hand."

"Well of course they don't need that! I'm an AI. Zero built me of course, so I guess that makes one of youuuu my parent!! Now, are you a mommy or a daddy? He he he, that would be telling. Now, with that said, I guess I should probably tell you that I'm not the one who brought you here. I'm just the...facilitator, for this facility! I just do what I'm told to do."

This time, Roomie spoke: "So you're like, the game master for this Nonary Game you mentioned?"

"Coooorrect! It's my job to make sure it runs smoothly. So, what is the Nonary Game you ask? Well Nonary comes from "Nine" which is a very important number in this game. After all, Nine is your goal. You see that door in front of you? The one with the red 9 on it? That is the only way out of this building. If you can open that door, you can escape."

"So how do we open it?" Valkyrae got straight to the point.

"Yes yes yes, let me explain. Look at the bracelets on your left wrists. Now, tell me, what number do you see?"

Everyone answered with "3".

"Exactly. I'm going to call those numbers "Bracelet points", or "BP". Only the people who can get their BP to 9 or more will be able to open the number 9 door and escape. It could be one of you or it could be all of you, but keep in mind that the door will only open _ONCE_. After that it is locked foreveeeeeer. When you have 9 or more BP you can pull that lever beside the door and it will open and stay open for _9 seconds only_. If _anybunny_ with less than 9 BP tries to sneakily get through the door as well while it is open, they _**will**_ get penalized. These are rules you _carrot_ forget!"

"Uhm, why did you start...making...rabbit puns?" Sykkuno asked.

"Kuni!! Uh, well, uhm, because!! I thought, it might make me sound...cute?"

"Nevermind that, you still haven't told us what we need to know most. How do we get BP?" Dave inquired.

"Oh I know it, I know the answer!! Just use the Ambidex Room." Zero Jr sounded like an excited student being called on by the teacher. "Those are the rooms you came out of, you can also call them the AB rooms. While you were talking I closed up the hatches again so you wouldn't try to cheat by going in that way. You can open the front doors though, with key cards that I have hidden aaaaall around this facility. To find them, you need to go through the Chromatic Doors, or CDs. Those are the coloured, shiny ones right hare! Just to your right."

"But...those are locked, we tried them earlier!" Jack exclaimed.

"Jacko. Can you press those buttons on the side of your bracelet at the same time for me please?"

"Why?"

"To make little boys ask questions. Just. Press. Them. Please. In fact, why doesn't everyone press their buttons?"

They had little choice but to obey, except for Corpse who couldn't reach his buttons with the suit on. He looked over Sykkuno's shoulder to see the display change to something that looked more like a digital clock. It showed "00:10".

"Does that mean it's 12:10 in the morning?" Poki asked.

"Noooo. This is the time left until the Chromatic Doors will open. Alright, lettuce review what we have learned: In 10 minutes the CDs will open automatically. _However_! Just like the number 9 door, they won't stay open forever. You have 5 minutes. Once the time is up the doors will close no matter what. So I _hop_ you've gone through them by then. But these are just the primary doors, each door has a twin, isn't that nice? Unfortunately, the secondary CD on the other side is locked too. This is to ensure that only the people that went through the first door can go through the second one. Of course that means you'll all have to split up. Boyband! Can you tell me what the 3 primary colours of light are?"

Dave looked unamused at the nickname he had received, but answered nonetheless: "Red, Blue and Green, like our bracelets."

"Correct! And which colours would you mix to get magenta, cyan and yellow? Cray-cray, your turn!"

Valkyrae rolled her eyes and said "Red and blue for magenta, blue and green for cyan and red and green for yellow."

"That's right! Now, have you figured out how to get through the CDs yet?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhh next chapter is the first choice ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
> That is also why it will be the "last" chapter, as depending on which option you choose you will either read on in Part 2, 3 or 4 of the series, so be sure to subscribe to the series! Thank you as always for all the love, I get especially excited about comments so please let me know what you think! (◕‿◕)♡


	6. The First Choice

"Yeah, I get it," said Sykkuno. "People with blue and red bracelets can go through the magenta door together, people with red and green bracelets can go through the yellow door together and people with blue and green bracelets can go through the cyan door together. Did I miss anything?"

"Verrrrry good Kuni! I think you rabb-it! There is one other little thing though..."

"You're talking about what happens if you've got two of the same colour, right?" Roomie asked.

"Yup, excellent deduction Roomba. If you wanna open a door, but all you've got is one colour, then you can use that to open a door with the complementary colour to the one you've got. So for example, red+red can open the cyan door, blue+blue can open the yellow door and green+green can open the magenta door. Got it? Great! I'll be hopping on to the next topic then. There are two types of bracelets: PAIRs and SOLOs. That means, there's two types of players too: pairs and solos! Easy if you ask me. In this game, the two members of a pair are considered to be a single entity, which means they share the saaaaaame destiny. Isn't that a good deal? You get two for the price of one! Unfortunately, it also means they carrot split up, awww." Corpse felt as if the rabbits eyes were looking right at him, which was ridiculous as it was just a projection. "Both members of a pair have to go through the same Chromatic Door. Solos don't have any restrictions like that though. I mean, why would they? They're forever alone...that means they can go whereeeever they want! Yaaaay! Okay, I'm glad we got all that bracelet business out of the way. Now lettuce return to the subject at hand...how do you get through the secondary doors: You have to have _exactly three people_ in your group. So that means it's always gonna be one pair and one solo. To make sure that you follow these rules the secondary door won't open until the primary door closes. It's made that way to keep out _cheaters_. Anywhoooo. I might have run a hare too long in my explanation, but now I'm aaaaaaaall done. Any questions?"

We all took a moment to gather our thoughts and go over everything we've learned so far, when Zero Jr spoke up again: "No? Excellent, it looks like none of you have questions. Yay."

"Huh? No wait! Of course we have questions!" Jack shouted. "What's the point of this game? Why did you take us? Where are we and who the hell is the real Zero?!"

As he finished speaking we heard a mechanic noise and turned around to see the Chromatic Doors opening. Then, we heard an announcement over the speakers "Chromatic Doors have opened. Five minutes remain until Chromatic Doors close."

"Oooh so sorry guys but it looks like your time's up. You'd better hop along and get those secondary doors open. If anyone is left outside after the primary doors close they'll...be penalized."

"You keep saying that, but what the hell is that penalty anyway?" Pewds burst out.

"Weeeeell....Death. Your bracelets contain 2 drugs. One is an aenesthetic, the other is a muscle relaxant. Your bracelet also has a bunch of needles on the inside. Those needles will activate automatically should you not obey the rules or should your BP drop below 0. First, the aenesthetic will put you to sleep and 9 minutes later the muscle relaxant will be injected, numbing your respiratory muscles. I guess you could say...it will really take your breath away. Of course, none of that will happen if you just follow the rules~"

They didn't even have time to digest this information, when the announcer could be heard again: "Three minutes remain until Chromatic Doors close."

"Well then, looks like it's time for me to hop on out of here. Good luck, guys! See you all later! Have a nice trap! Ahahaha," and just like that the wall was just a wall again, the projector shut off.

\-----------

We couldn't stand there for long, we had to act and think quick. While the others were still mulling things over and discussing their next moves, Corpse pulled Dave aside and out of earshot.

"Dave, it's me. I didn't know how to let you know earlier, but don't use my real name, please. You're the only person here that I trust. We need to make it out of here together, okay? Keep your eyes open and trust no one." That was all he needed to say. Dave nodded and they rejoined the others, as if nothing had happened.

Corpse decided to speak up in front of the group for the first time, now that Dave knew not to out him. "We need to decide who will go through which door, and fast. Pairs, stand together and Solos stand across from us so we can have a better overview which options we have." He ignored the renewed staring at him because of his voice. The important thing was that they did what he had told them to. Sykkuno came to stand next to him and he quickly laid out all the possible options in front of the group:

OPTION A:

Corpse & Sykkuno (red) would pair up with Jack (blue) and go through the magenta door.

Poki & Valkyrae (blue) would pair up with Ari (green) and go through the cyan door.

Roomie & Dave (green) would pair up with Pewds (red) and go through the yellow door.

OPTION B:

Corpse & Sykkuno (red) would pair up with Ari (green) and go through the yellow door.

Poki & Valkyrae (blue) would pair up with Pewds (red) and go through the magenta door.

Roomie & Dave (green) would pair up with Jack (blue) and go through the cyan door.

OPTION C:

Corpse & Sykkuno (red) would pair up with Pewds (red) and go through the cyan door.

Poki & Valkyrae (blue) would pair up with Jack (blue) and go through the yellow door.

Roomie & Dave (green) would pair up with Ari (green) and go through the magenta door.

He looked at everyone in turn to see if anyone had any strong preferences, but nobody spoke up. Finally, he looked at Sykkuno next to him and asked: "Which door do _you_ wanna go through?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will see you in:  
> Part 2 with Jack through the Magenta Door  
> Part 3 with Jaiden through the Yellow Door  
> Part 4 with Pewds through the Cyan Door
> 
> Sidenote: We're reading this story through Corpse's eyes, that's why he calls him "Dave" and not by his code name. That is also why we will only see what happens behind Corpse and Sykkuno's door and not the other ones so choose wisely which path you want to take ;) (jk you can come back and read the other paths as well of course)
> 
> 1000 Hits let's goooo <3
> 
> Edit: okay this next part is gonna take me a bit longer than expected :'D I gotta map the story out a bit more, but I'll be back in a few days with new chapters, promise :D


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